


Divergence

by neverminetohold



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Betrayal, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Growing Old Together, Happy Ending, Hopeful Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Loyalty, M/M, Major Character Injury, Multiple Endings, Permanent Injury, Romance, Sad Ending, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-11 23:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7912414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverminetohold/pseuds/neverminetohold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hope. Faith. Patience. Ocelot had infinite resources of all three when it came to John. - What was and could have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Core - What Was

**Author's Note:**

  * For [discardable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/discardable/gifts).



Dhekelia SBA Memorial Hospital  
Cyprus  
  
He set the vase down with more care than necessary, as always oddly reluctant to disturb the silence within the hospital room. It rained outside, but a stray ray of sunshine made it past the dark clouds. The white flower petals seemed to glow in the light. Fractured through the glass and water, it played all over the walls and floor tiles in dappled rainbow colors.  
  
Stars of Bethlehem were not easy to come by but he had made the necessary arrangements. Their sweet smell, reminiscent of jasmine and honeysuckle, became quickly lost among the sharp tang of iodoform and other disinfectants.  
  
"Good afternoon, John," Ocelot said softly by way of greeting, and took his seat beside the bed, beginning his daily vigil that would last until dawn.  
  
He had brought the latest issue of the _Cyprus Mail_ to read but left it neatly folded for now, resting across his lap. The newspaper was damp, as were his clothes, and the ink had left dark stains all over his fingertips.  
  
"Don't laugh, but I really feel naked like this," Ocelot confessed.  
  
No gloves, no spurs, no duster - and the gun he carried to avoid setting off the metal detectors in the entrance hall felt like a plastic toy when compared to the familiar weight of his revolvers. Still, it was a small price to pay to blend in.  
  
He was already breaking his own rules with these visits. They established a routine that Cipher wouldn't hesitate to exploit. His security measures, a carefully woven web of false leads, diversions and surveillance, favored a hands-off approach, didn't necessitate any direct contact.  
  
But here he sat and would sit tomorrow, as if ignorant to the inherent risk.  
  
"You know, I think I've finally run out of things to tell you."  
  
And wasn't that the truth. He had talked his throat raw over the years, offered up his every secret in-between status reports and world politics.  
  
He studied John's face, found it slack and devoid of expression, more so than yesterday because the nurses had shaved him. Without the beard his skin seemed even paler than usual. That and the bedlinen provided a stark contrast to the lines of fading scars, the dull-black gleam of the piece of shrapnel and the bandaged stump of his arm.  
  
They had both changed over the years, but never in any way that mattered. John would wake one day, adapt to his changed circumstances and rise to the challenge, as he had always done.  
  
"I'll be looking forward to repeating myself. And you know I wouldn't do that for just anyone."  
  
Predictably, his only answer remained the steady beeping of the heart monitor, the sole piece of medical equipment besides the IV stand that had not vanished behind a partition. The sound was reassuring, but also a poignant reminder that John was a man of action, truly at ease only among his men or in the heat of battle. He would resent being confined to a bed.  
  
"You'll set a new record for the worst patient," Ocelot said, amused by the thought. "Don't worry, I'll find ways to entertain you."  
  
It was one more promise he intended to keep. He reached over and gave John's upper arm a reassuring squeeze, little finger just barely skimming over layers of gauze. He sat back and unfolded his newspaper.  
  
He spent the rest of the afternoon reading, then settled in for a long night, wide-awake and on guard. Hope. Faith. Patience. - He had infinite resources of all three when it came to John.


	2. What Could Have Been - Alternate Ending 01

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It didn't feel selfish at all.

Mother Base, Seychelles Waters  
Level 1, Personal Quarters, Command Platform  
  
Ocelot stretched his sore body, intend on not disturbing the man lying fast asleep next to him. The frame of the bed creaked softly and the back of his hand brushed the cool metal hull, not quite reaching the many photographs that decorated it.  
  
The heavy steps of a guard doing rounds passed by the door and faded away. It was well after midnight, but more than enough Diamond Dogs were still on duty. A storm raged outside, a distant roar and howling that battered the ocean against the strut legs.  
  
"Ngh."  
  
Ocelot shivered, felt spots of saliva cooling on his skin. He shifted again, curling up tight, away from the soiled spot on the mattress where his inner muscles had worked to expel one last trickle of semen. His own had spattered his belly, begun to dry and itch.  
  
He didn't try to free his other hand, still held in the loose grip of metal fingers that had leeched the warmth from his wrist. Their perfect carbon copy had developed a will of its own despite their best efforts. John - the real Big Boss - would never have touched him like this, possessive yet gentle, had remained oblivious to his feelings for years and then chosen to turn a blind eye.  
  
His pulse sped up at the thought and calmed again, the cognitive dissonance a feeling like insects crawling hot and cold along his spine, until their tiny feet scraped his skull raw from the inside. The pressure settled behind his eyes, began to pound in his temples.  
  
Well, that was a little melodramatic. Except for the raging headache, the sensation was abstract, the opposite of physical, a wrongness he lacked the words to describe but found unsettling all over again each time his mission required the use of hypnotherapy.  
  
It _was_ true, Snake valued him for his skills as a spy and as a friend, but he felt the same for Miller, and how had that turned out for the man? And now Ocelot had been freely offered the one thing he had resigned himself to never having...  
  
He had once transferred his loyalty to one man over a nation or organization, had been caught between false identities and shifting allegiances, all to further Big Boss' agenda. How fitting then, that this would be his last betrayal. No more phantoms. This he would claim for himself, transform the lie that was Venom Snake into the one truth that mattered.  
  
It didn't feel selfish at all.  
  
"Two plus two," Ocelot murmured softly into the pillow, bracing himself for the shock of unlocking the black box that was his mind, "makes four."


	3. What Could Have Been - Alternate Ending 02

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'd be damned if he left one of his own behind.

Dhekelia SBA Memorial Hospital  
Cyprus  
  
The searchlight of another chopper illuminated the window while explosions rocked the hospital, showering them with plaster that rained down from a crack in the ceiling. The report of gun fire echoed up from the entrance hall, mixing with the screams of patients and staff, the squeaking of rubber soles running over linoleum before the sound died in a spray of blood and torn flesh.  
  
John moved on shaking legs, one hand braced against the wall. He felt thin and worn, but then the drugs started burning through his veins, finally overriding the sorry state nine years in a coma had left him in; lifting the fog from his mind.  
  
He stopped, watched the line of Ocelot's shoulders tense in anticipation. "Where is he?"  
  
"Boss, we don't --"  
  
"We'll make time," John said, voice flat and hard.  
  
It was bad enough that Cipher had mobilized too fast for them, that they now needed to put these people, goddamn _civilians_ , in the line of fire, using them as both a shield and diversion. - He'd be damned if he left one of his own behind.  
  
Ocelot knew, understood and approved, despite the risk. It was in the way his eyes softened a fraction. "This way."  
  
xxx  
  
It was like standing in a fun house surrounded by mirrors that changed his reflection in subtle ways. He couldn't find any trace of the Medic, his best man ever since the founding of MSF, in the slack and pale lines of this so called 'phantom' of his.  
  
Zero's plan, this ruse, was a betrayal all over again. It had reduced a good soldier, the man who had saved his life by shielding him from the blast of the bomb, to a mere pawn.  
  
"Is he awake?" John asked, caught up in the uncanny sight as he watched 'himself' blink and swallow in a regular, almost mechanic rhythm.  
  
Ocelot, standing by the door, using the wall as cover while keeping an eye out for immediate trouble, shook his head. "He's not actively conscious."  
  
"Can you --"  
  
"No. I can't finish the hypnotherapy or undo it," Ocelot interrupted him, his tone not without sympathy but matter of fact.  
  
John heard what he didn't say: that he would be in no state to escape with them anyway. The realization what needed to be done was followed by the sound of combat boots; drawing closer. Cipher's units were spreading out to sweep the upper floors of the hospital.  
  
"Thank you, my friend." John took aim, just one inch below the crown of Nathan's skull. "I'll see you in hell."


	4. What Could Have Been - Alternate Ending 03

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Leaving so soon, Commander Miller? Without saying goodbye?"

Secure Location  
Unknown  
  
"Leaving so soon, Commander Miller?" Ocelot asked, his tone deceptively light. "Without saying goodbye?"  
  
He stepped away from the cottage's wall, leaving the shadows that had hidden him, now that the sun was setting beyond the horizon in a blaze of blood-red and quickly falling darkness that seemed oddly fitting for this kind of reunion. This kind of ending.  
  
The XO of the Diamond Dogs stopped and turned around, but not quite fast enough to mask his flinch, the guilty conscience and disgust written all over his posture, the stiff line of his shoulders, the white knuckles of his balled fists.  
  
Ocelot idly wondered how long that title would last him, what the loyalty of his men would be worth once they discovered the truth. Big Boss was a legend. It was his call they had followed, his vision of a future they had united behind and served for nine years while the man himself lay in a coma, not Miller. No one could deny that he was a good soldier and even greater business man or his passion first for MSF and now the Diamond Dogs. But for a military force without a nation, that wouldn't be enough.  
  
"He'll never recover," Miller spat the words out as if they turned his stomach, as if he were the one who had been betrayed. "Unlike you, I'm not willing to give up my dream. Not even for him."  
  
Ocelot snorted. "What would you know about my dreams?"  
  
"Enough," Miller said, sneering. Loss and his burning need for revenge had twisted him into a cruel simulacrum of his former self. "I've seen the way you look at him."  
  
Ocelot shrugged, unfazed by a truth he had long since come to terms with. As if they hadn't all fallen a little in love with the legend - or the man. "So our deal is off?"  
  
"No. I'll keep my end of the bargain. Though I doubt Cipher will waste any more time and effort on --"  
  
"A cripple?"  
  
Miller raised his chin in defiance. "Exactly."  
  
He was already moving before his mind caught up with him, duster thrown back and Tornado drawn from his holster, cocked and aiming to sever the brain stem. It would be a quick death, far better than Miller deserved...  
  
"Adam?"  
  
The voice coming from the cottage's door was rough and thin, catching and stumbling over the simple syllables of his given name with the insistence of a scared and lost child.  
  
Miller saw his chance and took it. He drove off, the Humvee soon reduced to two fading cones of light. Ocelot watched them for a moment, then went up the steps where John leaned in the doorway, awkwardly balancing on his good leg. His pupil was blown wide from the drugs, his pale face drawn, a study in pain, exhaustion and slack muscles he no longer had any conscious control over.  
  
"Boss, you shouldn't be up," Ocelot chided mildly, keeping his voice low and gentle. "Let's get you back to bed."


	5. What Could Have Been - Alternate Ending 04

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Morning."

Outer Heaven, 200 km north of Galzburg  
Level 1, Personal Quarters  
  
Moving silently was no longer an option, at least not in the mornings when his muscles were stiff and his joints popped loudly. Having learned his lesson of sharing a bed with another light sleeper years ago, John didn't bother wasting what energy he had on trying.  
  
"Morning."  
  
Adam only grunted in protest and rolled over, away from the feeble rays of sunlight that had made it past the blinds. John watched him pull the pillow over his head, both amused and full of sympathy. Time had taken its toll on both of them, true, but with his nocturia Ocelot had gotten the short end of the stick.  
  
He moved towards the bathroom and tried not to wince as bone and cartilage ground together with each step. That a dog lay blocking his way didn't make reaching his goal any easier on his knees.  
  
"DD." Soulful eyes flicked open for a moment to meet his command tone head-on, tail thumping once against the carpet, then shut again. "Come on, boy."  
  
DD made a disgruntled noise, somewhere between a growl and a groan. His gray muzzle lifted from his paws but only to yawn, displaying the gaps of two missing canines. His fur had dulled and thinned out. They still went for walks, but now the word was fact, not a metaphor for something else entirely.  
  
John sighed, suddenly very glad that he no longer had to deal with fresh-faced recruits or little shits like Eli, and stepped around him, then looked back over his shoulder. "Adam, get your wrinkled ass out of the bed."


End file.
